OK, so here's my "big news" that I've had to keep quiet about until I could talk publicly about it. Thanks for putting up with my "non-disclosure" self, it's been really hard sitting on this one!

I'm doing design work for Thomas Dolby's next music release.

As you may remember, a while back I entered and won a contest to design a t-shirt for the one-off gig at Union Chapel that Dolby did. He was very happy with my shirt design and used it extensively in the show itself. I wrote him a follow-up email, congratulating him on a successful show and thanking him for getting so much use out of the design for the show. His reply: "No, thank you. Fancy taking a crack at doing the design for my next single?"

You must understand; I have been a hardcore Thomas Dolby fan since I picked up the UK import 12" single of "Europa and the Pirate Twins" from my local music store in 1982, and have continued to love his music solidly since then. This is a complete mind-blower for me; I imagine time-travelling back to 1985 Paul Sizer, still in college, and whispering in my own ear that in 20 or so years I would be doing design work for my musical hero! My head would have exploded, and a horrible time paradox would have occurred also (not to mention my younger self screaming when I saw what I would look like in the future)!

Thomas and I have been in constant communication from the UK (he lives along the North Sea coast with a re-constructed large life boat on his property that is his studio, powered by wind-power, of course), where he is recording his new album, "A Map Of The Floating City", due out late this year.

And you can also sign up at his site and and download a free version of this live single with my artwork for the cover. I'm working on a lot of other design work with Thomas that is linked to some incredibly cool concepts and ideas he has for releasing a new album on his own, and making use of what the internet and mobile tech can now really offer an artist who is as tech-savvy as Dolby (his company Beatnik created the polyphonic ringtone technology that is in every Nokia phone on Earth, so he's got THAT on his resume along with "She Blinded Me With Science").

Here's the info about Dolby's announcement of the new album "A Map Of The Floating City"

Was that worth all my ominous teases? Hope so, I am seriously geeked about this, let me know what you think.

Thanks all. Things are still in the planning stages, but Dolby is planning some seriously cool interaction portals for this album, using all kinds of mobile tech options, real cutting edge stuff. It's going to be really cool, and very connected to all the talk here about promotion of creative content really using the web for what it can do.